


Impressions

by anonymous_moose



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, a late submission for tazladyweek, and too short by half, but i couldn't not write about these two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 05:45:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9805202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymous_moose/pseuds/anonymous_moose
Summary: Her night had been going so well.Hurley does some cool monk stuff. Sloane tries to be mysterious. Marvey coins his classic catch phrase.





	

Hurley’s night had been going so well.

First, she’d placed second in the battlewagon race, showing up Marvey and his Hammerheads in the process. That was enough get the Raven’s attention. Then the Raven had spoken to her after the race, pulled up next to her and complimented both her skill and her ride. This was the break Hurley had been waiting for—the opportunity to close in, maybe learn the Raven’s true identity.

_And then turn her in. Right?_

Hurley dismissed the thought. No point in considering her options ( _when did you start thinking there were other options?_ ) until she actually had the Raven where she wanted her.

Of course, dismissing thoughts doesn’t make them go away, which is probably why she’d been distracted enough to get where she was now—in an alley, after dark, surrounded by Hammerheads.

“Nobody makes a fool of us. Especially no rookie,” Marvey said, swaggering in front of his boys. The big-headed leader of a small-time gang. Extortion and assault, mostly, if Hurley remembered his rap sheet right. “Now we gots to teach you a lesson, half-pint.”

She didn’t have her badge, didn’t have her farspeech stone. The dangers of being undercover. Play it up, act your part.

“Marvey,” she said firmly, cracking her knuckles. “You couldn’t teach a first-grader fingerpainting.”

Marvey’s expression went from smug to furious in the blink of an eye. He reached into his jacket pockets and pulled out a pair of knuckledusters. The other Hammerheads drew weapons of their own—clubs, pipes, chains. Others simply clenched their fists and readied themselves.

Hurley tugged on the thighs of her loose-fitting pants and settled into a lower stance. She took a moment to brush her bangs from her eyes, then invited them to attack.

Marvey came first. He swung like mad, big, wide haymakers that would have taken her head off if they’d connected. Hurley dodged them all easily. When a big orc tried to grab her from behind, she spun, grabbing his Hammerhead jacket for leverage, driving her foot into his unmentionables and throwing him over her shoulder at Marvey. They landed in a heap on the ground, the orc whining in a high pitched voice, and Marvey pointed and shouted, “Get her, boys!”

Things escalated quickly after that.

Hurley doesn’t remember most of the fight. One of the first things she’d learned at the monastery, in the course of mastering herself, was that the body works best when it is unencumbered by conscious thought. A fight was no longer one against another, or one against many, but its own single entity, driven by instinct, acting on its own will. Every movement led to every other movement, naturally, effortlessly, inevitably.

There was, however, a moment she would not soon forget. Occupied by two Hammerheads in front of her, Hurley was distantly aware of a third approaching from behind. One of the two ( _dragonborn, weak around the neck and solar plexus_ ) swung a chain, and it caught around her raised forearm. The one behind her reared up—the orc from before, she realized. Something gleamed in his hand ( _a knife, why didn’t you see the knife_ ) and as it came down, Hurley thought that this was a profoundly stupid way for her to die.

But the knife never came down. Something hooked around the orc’s arm and yanked him back, sent him sprawling on the ground. Hurley turned away, twisted her whole body, spun into a kick to the stomach that sent the dragonborn holding the chain to the ground in a heap. The other came in hard with a pipe, and Hurley blocked it with her chain-wrapped arm. He went for a second swing, and an iron ball flew from behind her and struck him hard in the face.

Hurley spun on her feet, ready to engage.

The Raven drew her chain back to herself, casually swinging the iron ball at the end. She was dressed as she always was, in her black battle-wagon leathers adorned with feathers, and her raven’s mask. Barely an inch of skin was exposed but for her mouth and the line of her jaw. She smiled, and Hurley only blinked stupidly.

“Stay outta this, Raven!” Marvey shouted, crawling back to his feet and wiping blood from his nose. “This don’t concern you!”

The Raven tutted gently. “Marvey, Marvey. I’m afraid it does concern me. You’re giving the rest of us a bad name.”

“Izzat so?!” he shouted. “Izzat so?!”

“I’m afraid it is,” The Raven continued. “You’re already throwing your weight around. You start killing people, they’ll start cracking down on all the racers, which means no more racing. And then what will I do for fun?”

“Izzat so?!” he shouted again.

Hurley turned to face the Raven, and saw what Marvey was distracting them from—one of the Hammerheads was behind her, a club in his hands. He raised it up to strike, and Hurley drew her hands together, ready to throw a spell—

The Raven didn’t even turn around. Hurley only saw the strike because she’d been trained to see it—to Marvey, it must have been an indistinct blur in the dark, a grunt, and the Hammerhead slowly falling to the ground.

“Come on, Marvey,” she said. “Just go home, huh?”

Marvey blinked, eyes wide. “Damn you guys!” he snarled. Then he charged.

Hurley casually hip-tossed him to the ground, sparing an extra moment to make sure he was a hundred percent unconscious this time. Then she turned to the Raven.

“I had it under control.”

The Raven scoffed. “You’re welcome.”

Hurley couldn’t stop the beginnings of a smile. “Sorry. Thanks.”

“Better.” The Raven stepped sideways, over a pair of Hammerheads. “And I let you handle most of it, to be fair.”

“Let me?” Hurley said, hands on her hips. “What, were you watching from the shadows?”

The Raven looked away. Her long dark hair obscured her jaw for a moment. Her body language almost read as embarrassed. “You were... impressive.”

Hurley raised her eyebrows. “Was that a compliment?”

The Raven laughed quietly, and started to walk away. “Don’t get used to it.”

Hurley started after her. “Wait!”

She stopped. Hurley was honestly surprised that she did.

“Why did you help me?” she asked. “And don’t give me that line you fed Marvey.”

There was a brief silence. The Raven turned, the profile of her mask stark against the lights from the streetlamps at the edge of the alley.

“Because I like you, lieutenant,” she said playfully. “Is that a crime?”

In the back of her mind, Hurley had always suspected. ( _Hoped?_ ) Months of cat-and-mouse between the two of them had bred a mutual respect that she’d done her best to tamp down, keep under control. But the more she’d seen of the Raven, on the track and off, the greater that respect had become. Now she knew it went both ways, and it made her stomach do backflips.

She tried not to think about what that meant.

The Raven gave a little two-finger salute, then threw her chain into the air. It caught high above on one of the wrought iron fire escapes, and with a tug, started to lift her upwards. Hurley watched her go, caught herself waving as she disappeared over a rooftop, and grimaced. She left the alley as the first Hammerheads started to come to, as preoccupied with her thoughts as she’d been when she’d entered.

This was starting to get complicated.


End file.
